A Ghost Story for Christmas

{(font: "bungee hairline")[ (text-style: "smear")[ (live:)[ (if: time < 10s)[<h1>A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS</h1> (if: time > 5s)[<font size="7">A GAME BY CHARLIE DART<font size="7"> ] ] (if: time > 13s)[ (go-to: "diary1")(stop:), ] ] ] ] }

$old[---Excerpt from the Diary of Emanuel Langhorne--- ==> 18th November 1883 <== At last my archaeological talents are called upon! Earlier today I received a letter in my London study, the contents of which told of a great localised quaking of the ground near a small village in one of the south-western counties – I forget which; the letter is not to hand – revealing a cave entrance near the parish cemetery. Apparently the vicar is a man of stout constitution and was able to make a quick survey of the opening passage – it sounds as if they have found some kind of pre-historic dwelling! I leave London by train tomorrow.] ==> (live:)[(if: time > 10s)[(link-goto: "-->", "flashback1")[(stop:)]]]

The morning sun that fell on the foot of (set: $firstname to "Justice")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["Justice", "Jaqui", "Nathaniel", "Bethany", "Torval", "Briar", "May", "Isambard", "Petra", "Clay"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$firstname");'>$firstname</tw-link> { }(set: $lastname to "Kilmersdon")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["Kilmersdon", "Bliss", "Sykes", "Hansel", "Knight", "Catsune", "Trollope", "Faustino", "Yeltsin", "Corcoran"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$lastname");'>$lastname</tw-link>’s bed was a deeper orange than it should have been. It spoke more of endings than beginnings; the smog made it that way. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "intro2")

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The morning sun that fell on the foot of $firstname $lastname’s bed was a deeper orange than it should have been. It spoke more of endings than beginnings; the smog made it that way. To $firstname (set: $mornlight to "this didn’t matter, it was still the most beautiful thing in the room. They watched it for as long as their schedule would allow.")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["this didn’t matter, it was still the most beautiful thing in the room. They watched it for as long as their schedule would allow.", "there was a sadness to this, a slow deep sigh unvoiced within them. They watched it for a few long minutes.", "mornings had always seemed too optimistic. It was better this way. They got out of bed."]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$mornlight");'>$mornlight</tw-link> They pushed the button on the coffee machine and sat on the edge of the bed drinking an espresso. It was supposed to automatically make a cup when they woke up, but they’d always had an eclectic sleeping pattern and usually you don't want a coffee at nine in the evening. In truth, they found it sort of creepy, how it knew that they’d just woken up. As they drank, they tried to remember the dream they’d been having, but as usual they could only remember the part where the alarm walked over to wake them up. The programme was designed to blend in with the dream to make waking up less abrupt, but it was always a strange, panicked moment when one of the dream’s characters began to shake them awake. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "intro3")

There wasn’t enough space for any furniture in the room, besides the bed. $firstname (set: $dressed to "picked some of the cleaner clothes off the sparse floorspace surrounding it, got dressed and stepped out the door.")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["picked some of the cleaner clothes off the sparse floorspace surrounding it, got dressed and stepped out the door.", "pulled a drawer out from beneath the bed, then carefully unfolded the clothes inside. They considered for a moment. Today they had to look good.", "only had one set of clothes, and they were self-cleaning; this way there was less to carry from place to place chasing work on days like this."]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$dressed");'>$dressed</tw-link> Today they had a job to do. The trip out west was going to take a few hours; the promised super-fast lines had never materialised, as expected. $firstname had somehow managed to book a seat the previous night, they supposed because someone had cancelled last minute. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "street")

Before they got the train out to the styx, $firstname grabbed their equipment from the lock-up at the station. They always picked the locker right in front of the security cameras, just in case. They’d taken out a big loan for this gear and were not prepared to lose it. The grey metal equipment case was bulky but just fitted in the footwell on the train. $firstname kept it between their legs for the whole journey, even though it meant their knee pressed painfully against the old chewing gum beneath the window. $firstname passed the time (set: $train to "like the rest of the passengers; playing games on their neurochip.")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["like the rest of the passengers; playing games on their neurochip.", "looking out the window.", "sleeping."]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$train");'>$train</tw-link> ==> (link-goto: "-->", "train2")

(if: $train is "like the rest of the passengers; playing games on their neurochip.")[They wanted to keep an eye on their luggage and avoid missing their stop so they rendered a window ahead of them rather than immersing. They could only play old games this way, but after a few minutes $firstname tended not to notice their janky interfaces anyway. Besides, //(set: $game to "The Witcher 5")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["The Witcher 5", "Finance Simulator 3", "Breaking Bad 3; It’s Already Broken", "Retrogame", "Just Another Zombie Game 2", "The Journal of Christian Dark", "Drake’s Glory", "Hank Splinter: Ace Attorney"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$game");'>$game</tw-link>// was timeless.]{ }(if: $train is "looking out the window.")[It was a nice surprise to get a window seat, rather than being stuck in one of the many central isles, so $firstname settled down and stared, and before they knew it the journey was over. Getting off the train, $firstname remembered seeing (set: $view to "a herd of silobeef being shipped to another facility")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["a herd of silobeef being shipped to another facility", "a hundred acres of steamed-up greenhouses", "the column of steam from a power plant", "some very old billboards", "a security guard with a long gun on a roof", "icicles hanging from the ducts of a server farm"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$view");'>$view</tw-link> and (set: $view2 to "parakeets sitting on a power line")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["parakeets sitting on a power line", "a classy-looking lighting shop", "a truck with a picture of a nature reserve on the side", "a group of cameradrones filming someone getting out of a car", "one of those Optospex adverts with the huge eye that follows the train", "a colourful slum on the edge of a river"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$view2");'>$view2</tw-link>. It a was nice journey.]{ }(if: $train is "sleeping.")[$firstname had set a geographical alarm for the stop, so they didn't keep waking up worried. They had learned how to sleep sitting up like this from many other similar journeys, and could make themselves relatively comfy. They dreamed about (set: $dream to "running down an increasingly tight street")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["running down an increasingly tight street", "visiting a dangerous zoo", "sitting on an old-fashioned train where they served food on carts", "starting a fire in their apartment", "drinking an endless cup of horrible coffee"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$dream");'>$dream</tw-link>. As usual, there was that strange moment of confusion when, inside their dream, the alarm walked up and shook them.] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "diary2")

The station, like a lot of buildings in the town, was old and crumbling. The concrete walls were brightened by streaks of orange rust and a small elder bush grew out of some cracked plastic guttering. Behind the neon sign advertising beer in the station shop window $firstname could just about make out a Holotender looping through its idle animations. You didn’t see many of those in London any more. It wasn’t the most auspicious of arrivals, but $firstname was here to work, not to sightsee. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "arrived2")

The job was just outside of town at a fracking drill-site. $firstname checked in at their hotel lobby as they made their way through the few streets of crumbling concrete which seemed to make up the bulk of this backwater place. A few abandoned buildings and a group of warehouses formed a sort of buffer zone between the town and the solar farm that surrounded it. The damaged sign of a burned-out and spray-painted clothing store read ‘Forevr’. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "arrived3")

$firstname found the site pretty easily, after they had updated their mapping app to factor in the new server farm that blocked their original route. The scene was pretty much as they’d expected it. All the drilling equipment had been moved on to another spot until $firstname had finished up, so all that was left was a rectangular patch of concrete with a few large concrete tubes stacked to the side, and a taut tarpaulin in the centre. All around, as far as the eye could see, were solar panels. They were interspersed with the town and the occasional warehouse. On the far horizon was a line of coal-fired power stations, turning the skyline grey. Almost invisible in their ubiquity, power lines and pylons criss-crossed the sky. $firstname often came out to the countryside for work, (set: $space to "but they never got used to the strange sense of exposure it gave them; they were a city-dweller at heart")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["but they never got used to the strange sense of exposure it gave them; they were a city-dweller at heart", "and while they’d found the sense of space unnerving at first, they had grown to love it; returning to the city was an almost claustrophobic experience", "and they knew the open space should have some kind of effect on them, but they never felt it"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$space");'>$space</tw-link>. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "towork")

It was time to get to work. $firstname could tell from the concrete tubes that the workers hadn’t got very far with the drilling process, which would hopefully mean that the cave beneath was relatively untouched. The energy company had a deal with Collection & Storage PLC – the company that contracted $firstname – to leave everything to the freelance archaeologist on sites like this, but you never knew whether //their// contractor had got the memo. Still, $firstname had often made more money on jobs where the contractors had tampered with things, by gathering evidence to pass onto Collection & Storage’s team of lawyers. It didn’t sound like it was going to be a very lucrative job, but at this point $firstname was taking anything they could get. The brief had said ‘collapsed cave with broken supports of Victorian origin,’ so there was a chance that there was something worth salvaging. They just hoped that they could get something saleable before the Victoriana craze went by, or else they’d have to wait for the next fashion cycle to get paid; Collection and Storage didn’t sell unless the time was ripe. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "towork2")

$firstname unhooked the tarpaulin from the small metal loops embedded in the concrete, revealing a dark hole. They then unlocked their case and surveyed its contents. Inside were six small black metal cubes and one larger rectangular silver cuboid. They tapped them in turn and a green light pulsed in the centre of the small cubes, whilst two cartoon eyes blinked open on the larger model. (set: $robots to "They were each in their own little padded slot. There was something about the way they fitted so snugly which really appealed to " + $firstname + "; it was probably why they bought this particular box of robots.")(print: "<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='[\"They were each in their own little padded slot. There was something about the way they fitted so snugly which really appealed to " + $firstname + " it was probably why they bought this particular box of robots.\", \"‘Good afternoon, boys and girls,’ " + $firstname + " said absent-mindedly as they waited for the little robots to power up. They said it quietly, to themselves, in the way you might say hello to a magpie.\", \"" + $firstname + " tapped their fingertips on the metal casing as they waited for the robots to boot. They wondered whether they were actually loading up, or if it was just a ploy to make you think there was more in there to load.\"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, \"$robots\");'>$robots</tw-link>") ==> (link-goto: "-->", "towork3")

After a couple of moments the little robots pushed themselves out of their padded slots on four spindly legs that protruded underneath. They hopped down out of the box and looked up expectantly. The larger bot sat upright then floated up to $firstname’s shoulder. It made a very quiet warm humming sound. $firstname closed the case’s lid, then opened a concealed compartment and pulled out a very thin coil of rope. They tied it to one of the metal loops and turned to the floating bot, ‘(set: $hole to "ACE, can you light up this hole for me, please?")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["ACE, can you light up this hole for me, please?", "Autonomous Cataloguing and Exploration unit 236, project light at 70% intensity into the hole ahead of me.", "Amy, would you be a dear and brighten things up a bit for me?"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$hole");'>$hole</tw-link>’ ==> (link-goto: "-->", "hole")

The robot floated over to the hole and faced downwards. In one of its corners a small circle appeared, then slid backwards and sideways into the bot, revealing a bright white light. The hole was an almost perfect cylinder about an arm span wide, reaching down into the ground for something in the region of twenty feet. It looked to be limestone all the way down. Presumably there was a layer of shale below that the fracking company was aiming for. At the bottom a few jutting pieces of wood were visible. $firstname threw the end of the rope over the side, then began to abseil down. The small robots followed, their little legs easily gripping the side of the hole. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "hole2")

At the bottom $firstname surveyed the old black wooden support struts which protruded from the compacted debris. ‘I suppose I have to hope that there is an un-collapsed chamber beyond this blockage,’ they said, sighing as they picked over a few stray rocks and wood splinters. (if: $hole is "ACE, can you light up this hole for me, please?")[$firstname turned to the congregation of little cubes at their feet. ‘Okay, I need you folks to clear this cave-in. Ping me if you hit any significant airspace or artefacts, don’t worry about what time it is. ACE, you do the usual – lift out the big pieces and catalogue everything the diggers find. I’m going to pull the tarp back over to give you all some privacy, but you’re on guard duty too.’(set: $botname to "ACE")]{ }(if: $hole is "Autonomous Cataloguing and Exploration unit 236, project light at 70% intensity into the hole ahead of me.")[$firstname turned to the small black cubes which had lined up neatly by their feet. ‘Excavation and Artefact Recovery units 34 to 40, excavate the collapsed cave bearing north east with all due care and caution. Inform me as soon as you find any artefacts or significant airspace, regardless of time. Autonomous Cataloguing and Exploration unit 236, clear any debris too large for the Excavation units, photograph and catalogue any artefacts and guard the scene from trespassers in my absence. Report any disturbances to me immediately.’(set: $botname to "Autonomous Cataloguing and Exploration unit 236")]{ }(if: $hole is "Amy, would you be a dear and brighten things up a bit for me?")[$firstname turned to the congregation of little cubes at their feet. ‘Okay, I need you little guys to clear this cave-in, and let me know if you find anything, okay? Don’t worry about what time it is. Amy, you do the usual – shift the big bits the diggers can’t lift and send me some snaps of anything they find. I’m going to pull the tarp back over to give you folks some privacy, but you’re on guard duty too.’(set: $botname to "Amy")] Getting back up the rope was harder than $firstname had anticipated; they would ache in the morning. On the walk back to the hotel the horizon turned a bruised purple colour as the sun set through the smoke from the distant power plants. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "hotel")

The hotel was (set: $hotel to "a Sleepstall, one of those new places that had started popping up all over, the ones with hammocks and one-touch auto-drawers.")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["a Sleepstall, one of those new places that had started popping up all over, the ones with hammocks and one-touch auto-drawers.", "really old, but in a nice way. It was quaint really. There were wooden rafters painted black and an ancient gambling machine blinked by the bar. It was a wonder the place still existed. A determined family enterprise, it turned out.", "an old Premier’s Lodge, didn’t look as if it had been updated since the fifties. Everything was that hideous shade of purple that just sets a person on edge."]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$hotel");'>$hotel</tw-link> $firstname took a couple of moments to check the job board on their neurochip; sometimes they wrote papers for undergrads when they were between archaeology jobs, and it looked like they might be hanging around this nowhere town for a little while. (either: "There was nothing", "There were a few small jobs, but nothing that would pay in line with the effort of evading the plagiarism software", "There were a couple of jobs, but nothing in their area of speciality"), so they stretched and headed for the shower. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "hotel2")

$old[ ==> 25th November 1883 <== Unfortunately it doesn’t seem as if there was much we were able to remove from the cave for examination on the surface; a couple of pots and a few animal bones. The pots are perhaps interesting to my uncle Charles who collects that sort of thing. I will send him a letter later today. The bones are obviously worthless but I’ve sent for the butcher to see if he is able to identify them. The eating habits of early man might make for an interesting chapter in my next book, at least. The most remarkable part of the caves is frustratingly nothing I can take back to London, at least not without considerable effort. There are a number of rather strange paintings on the walls. I couldn’t make much of them out on my first viewing, and I didn’t fancy staying in that dirty hole all day examining them. I’ve already ruined a perfectly good pair of trousers kneeling in the mud, and I shan’t be going back in unless absolutely necessary. I had Ezekiel take some plates of them with his new toy, despite the fight he put up over it. I told him that I would pay him whether the plates were empty or not, though what use is a camera that doesn’t work in candlelight? He is heading west to one of the Cornish seaside towns today, and honestly I won’t be sad to see him go. I feel he still resents me. I asked him whether his wife would allow him to be gone for so long and he looked at me with such judgement in his eyes, as if my circumstances were at all comparable. He says he will have the developed pictures sent to me in two weeks. Why he wants to take pictures of fishermen is beyond me. There is no beauty in poverty. I can’t wait two weeks in this tiny village. The local types at the inn are beginning to attempt conversation. I’ll have one of the boys from the seminary make some sketches of the paintings and take them back to London.] ==> (live:)[(if: time > 10s)[(link-goto: "-->", "arrived")[(stop:)]]]

The following days really seemed to drag. On the first night a crew of labourers extending the solar panel jungle closer to the town accidentally cut through the main data pipeline and left the place without groundnet access. The airnet signal was patchy around these parts, what with all the interference from the server farm blackout zones and solar panel noise. There seemed to be a lot more people in town the next day, wandering up and down the street, craning their necks trying to get signal. A group of locals hung out on a balcony together where the signal was stronger; this was obviously a recurring problem out here, but oddly it gave the place a more metropolitan feel. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "killtime2")

{(if: $hotel is "a Sleepstall, one of those new places that had started popping up all over, the ones with hammocks and one-touch auto-drawers.")[The shower was shared, so $firstname spent as long as they could soaking before someone started rapping on the door. It was hot and clean, at least. The scrubbing algorithm did a good job here, and(set: $hotel to "sleepstall")] (if: $hotel is "really old, but in a nice way. It was quaint really. There were wooden rafters painted black and an ancient gambling machine blinked by the bar. It was a wonder the place still existed. A determined family enterprise, it turned out.")[$firstname couldn't afford one of the rooms with a modern wallshower so had to make do with an old-fashioned directional shower head. They never felt right at first, like you were only cleaning half your body. It spluttered a little when someone in the next room ran the tap, but it was hot, at least, and(set: $hotel to "old")] (if: $hotel is "an old Premier’s Lodge, didn’t look as if it had been updated since the fifties. Everything was that hideous shade of purple that just sets a person on edge.")[It was a fiddle to work out the controls for the shower, and when the water did come it was scorchingly hot. There was a bathmat underfoot that squelched disconcertingly. Pink mould had accumulated in the corners, and the silicon around the edge of the bath was spotted with black. $firstname didn’t feel all that clean when they were done, but (set: $hotel to "premierinn")]} they hoped that the heat would stop their muscles from seizing up after the climb out of that hole. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "hotel3")

When the first few panicked hours were over and people accepted their lack of net access, they begrudgingly talked to each other. In the hotel bar people sat and remonstrated together over cheap beer. People sat and smoked outside cafés, where small crates of real physical books were dusted off and left out for customers. It would have been nice, quaint even, but over every interaction, every movement, was a layer of impatience, unease, a feeling of being trapped. The airnet signal fluctuated on the balcony and an old-timer’s eyes blinked out from his immersion, focussing instead on the view outside of town – at the endless rows of solar panels where once there were fields. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "killtime3")

$firstname managed to keep up the signal to the bots without too much trouble; it was a low-data exchange, so it carried through the airnet easily without corruption. For quite some time there was no word. They expected this, the bots worked slowly and methodically, spotting details a human would happily miss. With little external net access the job boards wouldn’t even load, so $firstname was, like everyone else, forced to make their own fun. They spent most of those first three days (set: $killtime to "reading an old book at the café – some enormous 21st Century Sci-fi novel.")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["reading an old book at the café – some enormous 21st Century sci-fi novel.", "chatting to the other punters at the bar.", "writing crappy short stories on the back of napkins and leaving them to be found by others."]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$killtime");'>$killtime</tw-link> ==> (link-goto: "-->", "killtime4")

(if: $killtime is "reading an old book at the café – some enormous 21st Century Sci-fi novel.")[It was a little difficult to get into at first - $firstname didn’t do much reading for fun; that’s what neurogames were for. It was only when they started treating it as a cultural history assignment that they started to make inroads. Around halfway through, as $firstname finished their fourth espresso of the day, the central villain was revealed; an ancient space horror, escaped from a cave on an alien world. The characters were plagued with nightmares and psychic tortures. $firstname’s notes from this point read: ‘what does horror represent? perhaps late C21st anxieties around tech? plot seems cheap rehash of weird fic. esp. Lovecraft etc. why evry1 so afraid? no physcl thret.’ They never got to the end where the protagonist dies horribly, as they were always doomed to.]{ }(if: $killtime is "chatting to the other punters at the bar.")[There were a few characters at the bar. $firstname watched for a long time before they plucked up the courage to go chat. The serving arm would act without instruction for some of the customers - they were the regulars. Two of them were arguing about which stores used to inhabit each of the gutted buildings on the edges of the town. Without the groundnet, the music looped after about 15 tracks, all on the same album by some gutter punk band from the late 60s. For some reason it was the only thing saved onto the local memory. After three loops a young woman called Syn swore and walked over to a door by the bar. She punched in a key code, opened the door and yelled out to the other punters, ‘anyone got anything better than this garbage on their local?’ $firstname donated their old (either: "King Crimson", "Justice Priests", "Sporkal Eclipse", "Hyte", "Special Interest", "Happen", "Watchers and Waiters", "Tryte") album, and a couple of other pirated records. It broke the ice, so they got chatting. Mostly they talked about music and the latest immersive game releases, but eventually they got onto why they were both there. ‘My family used to own some of the land close to town,’ said Syn, ‘this was centuries back, apparently they sold up when the first daughter of my great, great, great… I think there were five “greats”, or was it seven? Or ten? I don’t remember, but anyway they sold up when their daughter died mysteriously. Or at least that’s what I heard.’ ‘So why are you back here?’ ‘I’m getting to it!’ Syn slapped the table loud enough to draw a few annoyed glances from the locals. She’d been drinking for some time. ‘I was approached by a legal firm a few months back – some small operation, seemed pretty sleazy at the time, but they won me around – and they said their AI had detected some some clause in the documents from the sale, something along the lines that,’ she made quotation marks with her fingers, ‘“all descendants of the seller have the right to re-purchase the land at a maximum of twice the cost of sale”, which means that I can buy it //suuper// cheap.’ ‘So why do you need to be here in person?’ ‘I need the original documents to prove it, but I don’t think they’re stored here any more. Hey, you said you’re an archaeologist, wanna do some digging?’ $firstname laughed ‘I’ll leave this one to you, I think.’]{ }(if: $killtime is "writing crappy short stories on the back of napkins and leaving them to be found by others.")[The best one was about (either: "a boy whose war games influenced events on the other side of the galaxy.", "a fox that starts up an orphanage for chicks.", "an ancient robot who wants to enslave everyone, but falls for a planet instead.", "a woman whose voice can be heard three centuries away if she sings.") It wasn’t (quite) as crappy as the others, at least; it had a certain (either: "violence", "grace", "boisterous energy", "quietude", "hopefulness", "resonance") to it. Most people seemed to enjoy the novelty of a napkin story, even if the content wasn’t wonderful. One man, a local copywriter called Jain, even laughed aloud (in what $firstname thought was a good way) at the story $firstname surreptitiously left by his elbow. One of the labourers who had cut through the groundnet cable, a woman called Gershwyn, had snuck into town, wearing a green parka that hid her face as disguise so she could grab a beer at the bar. Nobody would have noticed who she was unless she had come in wearing her overalls, but they did notice the walkie-talkie in her bag which chirped up with a status update from the others just as she took the first sip of her beer. As she scrambled to get away from the narrowed eyes of the locals surrounding her, she spilled her beer down her face and mopped it up with $firstname's napkin story. It had been one of the good ones.] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtohole")

Towards the end of the third day, $firstname’d had enough. There was still no word from the bots, except the daily ‘still digging’ memo, but they decided to head over to the site anyway, just for something to do. A couple of extra pulled muscles from climbing back up the rope were better than the boredom. Thankfully $firstname had remembered the way back to the site and didn’t need their map overlay, which kept bugging out when it had almost loaded. Perhaps it was something about keeping themselves alert for landmarks, but they felt oddly on edge the whole way there. Their whole head felt tense and they realised when they arrived they had walked pretty much the entire way with eyebrows raised and forehead wrinkled. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtohole2")

When they raised the tarp they expected to see the larger robot waiting for them, or shifting rocks out of the hole they were digging, but none of the bots were anywhere to be seen. $firstname abseiled down to the bottom of the hole and peered into the newly cleared cave entrance. It was small, and they had to crouch to get inside, but it opened up the further it went through. $firstname could see a turn up ahead that lights occasionally bounced off. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtohole3")

Around the corner was a clear, open space. The little cube bots were scurrying around, picking pieces out of a blockage on the opposite end. The larger robot was turned away from $firstname, and was shining its light at the wall ahead of it. On the cave wall was a painting. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtohole4")

$old[ ==> 30th November 1883 <== Ah the pleasure of female company! The lord of the manor came to the inn last night, looking for a wayward servant, and instead found me! He is a good-natured man, not averse to the odd tipple, so naturally I pounced on the opportunity for a higher class of conversation than the rest of these oafs can afford me. It transpires his Lordship is a man of antiquarian pursuits, and has opened his house to me until my business here is concluded, on the condition I take an hour each day to teach his daughter – a handsome young lady called Flora – a little on the subject of history. I confess I have spent rather more than my allotted hour with the young lady, she is a salve to the soul, and a great consolation for the otherwise interminable hours I spend waiting for more sketches from the choir boy. On the subject of which, the first few he brought me were not up to the standard I had been led to expect by his master – who I paid well for the boy’s absence, I might add! In the first few it was almost impossible to make out any real forms, they were just a collection of swirling lines! I understand the subject matter is not exactly fine art, but the boy’s dedication to accuracy seems questionable; half way through the stack of papers he handed me was a portrait of a man writing notes in a small book. He must have handed me some of his homework along with what I ordered, but the fool claimed he’d never seen it before. It was clearly his – the hand was the same – perhaps he was simply too embarrassed to admit it? It hardly seems worth the money, but I remember from my brief survey there being some more complex scenes – figures and the like – further into the cave, so perhaps things will get more interesting when the boy works his way further in. I just hope he gets there before he works through all my funds in candles; he flat out refused to go into the cave today unless I gave him five more! Poor fellow must be frightened of the dark. Enough of this scribbling for now – the dinner bell rings.] ==> (live:)[(if: time > 10s)[(link-goto: "-->", "killtime")[(stop:)]]]

Later that day the groundnet was reattached by some Netcorp engineers who had thankfully been nearby. On their way back through town $firstname overheard that last time it had taken them weeks to get around to fixing the problems. $firstname had been in the cave when it happened. They were met with a barrage of social media updates, a couple of now-useless job offers in the mix. That was when they had let the bots get back to work, and headed back to the hotel. Before they left, the larger bot completed the spacescan, so $firstname could immerse into the cave from the warmth and safety of the hotel. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtoroom2")

The sun was setting as $firstname hauled themselves out of the hole and reattached the tarp. They’d been down there for longer than they thought, marvelling at the paintings. The walk home looked very different at night; the gap between each row of solar panels was a dark tunnel that seemed to stretch forever. The air was still, expectant. The clouds of $firstname’s breath hung in the air. In the quiet that accompanies these kind of situations, the buzz of electricity lines and the whirr of server farms seem as loud as anything the daytime has to offer. Without meaning to, $firstname’s ears were straining for any additional noises on these unlit rural roads. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtoroom3")

Thankfully, their map overlay was back online, so $firstname didn’t get lost in these now-unfamiliar surroundings. Yet perhaps it was because of this virtual distraction from the cold night around them that they felt so on edge. Usually they would have music or a podcast of some sort playing on a walk like this, but not that night. Twice they almost jumped out of their skin at the noise of a disturbed group of crows taking off. In the abandoned streets around the town, they heard their own footsteps reflected back behind them by an alleyway. And then there was this little noise, barely noticeable, that would start up every now and again. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtoroom4")

It was the kind of noise with which you can’t be sure if it’s really there, or just in your head. Occasionally $firstname would stop walking and cock their head to the side, trying to listen through the electrical buzz around them. They couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like a sort of scratching; perhaps the scuffling of a rat or other small animal? Once before, in a similar situation, they’d been so tired that they hallucinated little lights like camera flashes coming from inside some derelict greenhouses. They had been convinced someone was following them, photographing them, until the next morning when they woke up and realised how tired they had been. This was probably the same thing again, they thought, as the lump in their throat started to ache. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "flashback2")

In the morning, $firstname was keen to get back to work. The previous evening’s glimpse of the cave was astounding, even in that half-light, so they were eager to see it once again in the simulation. After breakfast they retreated back to the hotel room, lay down (if: $hotel is "sleepstall")[in their hammock](if: $hotel is "old")[on their bed](if: $hotel is "premierinn")[on their bed] and immersed into the spacescan of the cave. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backinroom2")

A neolithic cave painting. On the Isle of Britain. ‘It must be a hoax,’ $firstname said quietly, to themselves. There are no known cave paintings on the Isle of Britain as the wet climate tends to destroy any pigment left on cave walls. That’s not to say that there is no cave art, or that there never was; there are plenty of examples of eroded cave carvings which escaped the attention of archaeologists for many years. They are often only visible through modern laser-mapping techniques, and are hardly as impressive as the paintings found in drier, hotter climates. The painting was what looked like an auroch, its horns pointed downwards at a figure wielding a spear. It was very sophisticated, using a mixture of reds, dark umbers and black. After a moment or two, $firstname’s gaze moved beyond the bull, onto the other surrounding walls. There was nothing as impressive as this anywhere in //Europe//. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtohole5")

‘I thought you said there was nothing to report!’ $firstname called, stepping up behind the larger bot. ‘Apologies, information provided is incorrect.’ ‘This is definitely something to report.’ ‘Apologies, user $lastname, statement does not align with service log. Three separate communications were sent to user $lastname informing them of discoveries at 2:07, 2:16 and 2:30 last night. Presenting records for inspection.’ A small holographic screen popped up in front of $firstname, where records of the communications were clearly marked as having been sent. ‘Strange,’ they thought, ‘it even has delivery receipts from my neurochip.’ ==> (link-goto: "-->", "diary4")

The walls were awash with animals and human figures, they spilled from cracks, overlapped each other, jostled for space in a cacophony of lines and colour. Hand prints of varying sizes cascaded down from the ceiling, humans chased aurochs, deer, mammoths. Predator’s faces overlapped in profile, like a pack of cards spread out; constantly perfected, revised, an act of worship, understanding, self-actualisation? Strange shamanistic figures – half-animal, half-human – cavorted amongst enormous herds of prey animals. Ranks of bow-wielding figures jostled for space with abstract shapes; spirals, branching lines, suns, dots and boxes. As $firstname walked through the space new images revealed themselves from behind jags of rock; small congregations hiding to perform their strange, teeming rituals. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "backtohole6")

The cave was different in the immersion. It was well lit for starters, in the cold bluish light that $botname, the larger bot, had provided. It had stitched together hundreds of photos over the 3D model of the cave walls produced with the spacescan. It was entirely seamless, but somehow unsettling; in the flesh the cave had seemed tantalisingly mysterious, but now everything was stripped of its shadow. The fact there was no clear directional light source gave things a disorientating flatness. It reminded $firstname of the time they had played a game made by a friend of theirs when it was still in development, before they had implemented the lighting; the character of the space was stripped back, morgue-like, and their depth perception was strangely skewed. They got to work studying a section of the wall. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "studying")

$firstname started studying a section of wall (set: $study to "depicting a hunting scene; a cluster of black figures launching bows and spears at a roiling herd of deer.")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["depicting a hunting scene; a cluster of black figures launching bows and spears at a roiling herd of deer.", "where a large, detailed figure was painted over many smaller figures.", "depicting some kind of ritual, perhaps? Figures danced in odd patterns."]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$study");'>$study</tw-link> The paintings weren’t a hoax, $botname had carbon-dated some of the charcoal markings and had found them to be 12,000 years old, meaning they’d probably been daubed on just before the last ice age. It was a truly astonishing find, and must point to a serious population centre, unprecedented this far north; one reason it was thought there were no cave paintings here – besides the climate – was that there were very few people so far north at the time. But why had this cave stayed so dry? The whole thing was a wonderful mystery. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "studying2")

(if: $study is "depicting a hunting scene; a cluster of black figures launching bows and spears at a roiling herd of deer.")[The black figures were spindly, but not quite stick-men; the limbs were simply drawn but had a sense of musculature to them. The bodies were lengthened, downward-facing triangles, with little representation of hips. They were formed in three neat ranks, ten men in each; a formation that seemed far more suited to war than hunting, yet nevertheless their weapons all faced downwards towards the mass of deer. The deer overlapped and interlocked together. There must have been around twenty altogether. Their antlers distinguished them as deer primarily, the shapes of their bodies being too mixed together to make out. At the edge of the group closest to the hunters, a few arrows and spears stuck out of the mass. The deer were surrounded by a thick black line; from this and the angle of the hunters’ bows, it looked as if the deer may have become trapped in some kind of natural ravine or depression, making themselves a target for the hunters.]{ }(if: $study is "where a large, detailed figure was painted over many smaller figures.")[The figures beneath the larger figure were charcoal-black and thin. Most were male, but a number female Venus figures sat in a circle at the centre of the larger figure’s chest. Each small figure was crouched over what looked like a rope or snake, and had a line in their right hand; was it perhaps some tool or weapon? They showed clearly through the red and yellow umbers of the larger figure. The larger figure covered almost all of these smaller figures, and was clearly painted afterwards. It had a muscular human body with a horse’s head. Bands of what seemed to be red fabric were tied onto it with numerous ropes, some of which were also wrapped around the horse head, like a bridle. In the gaps between the smaller figures, little rectangular glyphs covered the fabric. $firstname wondered why someone had painted over these other figures, whether this had been adapted, or if it was part of some original design? Certainly the black figures seemed to sit in a roughly body-shaped formation, but was this just a coincidence which inspired the latter artist? Or were the smaller figures all acolytes of this strange horse-god, creating and at once being subsumed by it?]{ }(if: $study is "depicting some kind of ritual, perhaps? Figures danced in odd patterns.")[The figures were arranged almost geometrically on the ceiling of the cave. Radial lines of thin, high-stepping male stick-figures were alternated with circles of female figures, arms flailing. At the centre a spiral of indistinct figures paraded towards a dark black circle. Each of them held a small black square in both hands. What did it mean? There was clearly some symbolism to this particular arrangement. Was the black circle a hole of some kind, was it death, was this the dance of life? $firstname made a few notes in their headbook. As the figures paraded closer to the central black mark they became taller, more stretched out. The final figure seemed to peer into the darkness, bending themselves around it.] $firstname was so absorbed in their study that they didn’t notice the noise, at first. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "studying3")

In this virtual world the space didn’t echo as it should. $firstname felt ghostlike; they made no noise as they stepped around crags, there was no gravely scrape of their feet as they crouched to see a lower painting. Humans aren’t built to hear nothing, there’s always something, at least the sound of our own bodies ticking away. $firstname had read about auditory hallucinations as a result of sensory deprivation before. Perhaps that was why there was a sound, just on the edge of hearing, so soft that $firstname couldn’t tell if it was in their head or real. A thin scritch-scratch. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "studying4")

$firstname looked up from their work, across to the furthest edge of the cave, where the smaller bots had been extending it by clearing the debris, and then stopped in that position for a few moments. The immersion was frozen, jumping between two infinitesimally different frames for around two seconds, and then $firstname was able to move again, and the cave had extended a few feet. The wave of panic that had been creeping up their back subsided; the bots had uploaded a new iteration of the cave to $firstname’s neurochip, and it had taken a moment to re-render. The noise must have been some kind of interference as the new file was uploaded. They walked across to the new section of cave. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "studying5")

The new section of passage was only a few feet long. It was a bit taller than rest of the cave, due to the fact the roof which had collapsed in was now removed. At the bottom of the cave walls were painted hundreds of little feet, all facing towards the collapse, but there was nothing above the knee; this part of the wall had been destroyed in the collapse, along with the ceiling. $firstname cast an eye over the debris at the end of the passage. Jutting out from amongst the larger pieces of rubble was a small piece of painted wall. $firstname set up a call to $botname. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "callbot")

‘$botname,’ they said, ‘I need you to start imaging the debris you pull out of there, see if you can jigsaw it together and render it into my immersion; some of the debris still has wall paintings on it.’ There was no reply, just silence. ‘$botname?’ A pause, ‘I need you to re-’, and then the scritch-scratching began once again, louder this time. $firstname waggled their finger in their virtual ear, as if this would help. What was it, static? ‘Can you hear me?’ And then the robot replied, but $firstname didn’t listen. Behind its voice the sound continued, but was joined by the sound of (if: $hotel is "old")[the bar staff clearing the dishwasher downstairs, the whirring of the ceiling fan,](if: $hotel is "sleepstall")[a couple murmuring in the next sleepstall box, the quiet creak of their hammock,](if: $hotel is "premierinn")[a crow outside their window, the whistle of the air con,] the sound of someone else’s quiet breathing. The sound was coming from their //real// ears. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "jackout")

There was a moment of darkness as $firstname disconnected from the cave immersion. It felt like an eternity to them, as they waited for their real sight to reconnect, but it was half a second at most. They were halfway upright in (if: $hotel is "sleepstall")[the hammock](if: $hotel is "old")[bed](if: $hotel is "premierinn")[bed] as their eyes opened, and – There was nobody there. The room was empty apart from them. Their heart was beating hard, and they could hear nothing for a few moments but the sound of blood in their ears. The room was empty. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "dream")

$firstname didn’t immerse again that day. Instead, they went to the town’s only café and polished up their knowledge of palaeolithic Britain. On the way through the hotel lobby (if: $hotel is "premierinn")[they adjusted their room settings on the check-in screen so that the hotel wouldn’t send any cleaning services into the room during their stay.](if: $hotel is "sleepstall")[they stopped by the check-in screen and asked the autonomous manager (ostensibly a pretty Asian woman – the east was still seen as futuristic by the western economies) to adjust their room settings so the cleaning bot wouldn’t visit during their stay.](if: $hotel is "old")[they stopped by the front desk to ask the manager to ensure no cleaning staff went into their room during their stay. There was nobody there so they scrawled a note and stuck it to the computer screen.] Before they went to sleep, $firstname propped their case against the room door, hoping it would clatter if anyone else tried to enter. That night they dreamt that they lay in bed with one eye open. The hotel walls were covered in paintings of little black figures that slowly walked towards a dark corner, whispering to each other and pointing at $firstname. They dragged dead aurochs and deer behind them, leaving red ochre stains across the walls. No matter how hard they tried, $firstname couldn’t look directly at the dark corner, but they could feel something watching from within its shadows, and they could hear a scratching noise. And then, in the way dreams do, they closed their eye and it morphed into something else. The room fell away and was replaced with another, but the scratching noise remained. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "flashback3")

$old[ ==> 3rd December 1883 <== That damn choir boy is giving up on me! Yesterday, when working on some sketches further into the caves, his candle went out and he broke his leg falling into a deeper section of the cave. His master even has the cheek to blame me for the boy’s incompetence. Says the boy is scared half to death from the ordeal. I made a quick survey of the space myself today, to assess whether I can get another boy sent in. The hole he fell down isn’t much of a drop; it wouldn’t have harmed him if he had seen it coming. Unfortunately there seems to be some kind of clayish soil blocking the way further through. I’ve paid some of the local workmen to clear the passage. On the bright side, I have had a number of pleasurable tête-à-têtes during long walks with young Florence over the past few days, making my otherwise interminable stay here bearable. She thinks it’s dreadfully brave and honourable, delving into these dark spaces in the pursuit of scientific advancement, and as taken a great interest in the boy’s drawings that I’ve shown to her. I shall be sure to make myself worthy of her admiration by delving in further myself (I’m sure there are some workmen’s trousers I can commandeer somewhere nearby), as soon as the blockage has been cleared. There was, however, a strangeness to her manner, that rather soured my enjoyment of her company, the last time we spoke. I cannot abide oddness of character, I have had to deal with quite enough of it in my life already. We were leafing through the last batch of papers from the choir boy together in the drawing room – I, elucidating to her the possible meanings of such remarkable cave paintings, the significance of them, the fame they would bring me – and once more that damned boy had left some of his homework in with the rest! The same man writing in a book, again; some kind of life-drawing study, to be sure. If the portrait is anything to go by I have reason to worry for the veracity of the other drawings he has provided; the man in the portrait is oddly stretched out, and his face is all in shadow. As soon as Florence saw the man she recoiled, as one would if they had seen a snake in the grass! ‘Why, I dreamt of that man only last night!’ she said. I tried to convince her it was probably because he was someone she had seen in the village, and his image had naturally found its way into her night-time mind, yet she persisted in her medieval fear. She would not even look at the drawing again. I tried to pry from her the details of this dream – it must have been terrifying indeed! - but all I could gather from her white-pursed lips was she felt some intractable guilt. Hopefully the poor girl will have recovered enough to brighten the dinner table tonight.] ==> (live:)[(if: time > 10s)[(link-goto: "-->", "backtoroom")[(stop:)]]]

Eventually, they went back to the hotel room. They rammed their towel into the gap under their door, and placed the case next to it in the hope that it would slow down any intruders, then settled down once more to immerse. The caves were fascinating, and the excitement of it began to calm their nerves. The moment of darkness before the unnaturally bright cave materialised around them was notably longer than before. There was more to load, they supposed. The bots had cleared further down the new passageway. It had taken a sharp turn downwards, and at the end there was even a drop down of four or five feet. The passage showed evidence of more modern tool marks; before the collapse the Victorian diggers who had laid down the supporting struts had worked on this section – perhaps clearing an earlier collapse? $firstname wondered why this cave hadn’t been announced to the world before. They had clearly worked here, and couldn’t have missed the wall paintings. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "immersedagain2")

The bots had also started reconstructing a pre-cave-in version of the passage, complete with some cave paintings. It was patchy, as some pieces of rock had been pulverised, and much of the painting had been defaced or destroyed in the process, but $firstname could make out something of what was once depicted here. The feet which they had previously identified were a procession of people, all leading deeper into the cave. Each armed figure had a number of others behind them, attached by ropes at the neck. Slaves. $firstname followed the procession for as far as it went, studying each of the figures in turn. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "immersedagain3")

The slaves were both male and female, drawn simply in what looked like charcoal or bone-black paint. A few were missing limbs, but it was unclear if this was because of design or because they had become erased in the collapse. They all had their hands bound behind their backs, and were attached at the neck with what appeared to be a rope. The slavers wielded short spears and were physically larger than their captives. They were painted in yellow ochre, with strange glyphs adorning their skin in red. These expressive lines appeared to be cuts at first, but seemed less random the longer $firstname looked at them. Were they marks of distinction, initiation? They stood more upright than the slaves, appearing almost stretched out in comparison, and $firstname realised that their limbs were unnaturally long in comparison to their bodies. Figures with the same configuration of markings appeared time and time again, and the number of slaves behind them varied. There was one other kind of figure depicted on the wall. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "immersedagain4")

Just above each line of figures was another, separate figure. It was entirely black and featureless, like the slaves, but this black seemed deeper, and the figure was larger and appeared to be wearing a long robe. The entire lower half of the body was a single block, giving it the appearance of a chess piece. The figure was holding a black square in its right hand, and holding a line against the square with its left. Some kind of tallyman, perhaps? The figure was exactly the same in each depiction. Like the slavers, the man was strangely misshapen, stretched out. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "immersedagain5")

$firstname followed the procession to the end of the passageway. It must have gone on for at least a hundred slaves. At the end they turned back, to look further at the larger chamber with its writhing mass of pictures. As they turned, the immersion updated again. Once again there was that dissociative feeling as $firstname was unable to move their body for a panicked moment. But this time there were two pauses. And, for what must have been half a second in-between, there was someone there with them; a dark mass standing beside them, just out of the corner of their eye. And before they even had a chance to process what they were seeing, it was gone. $firstname screamed and disconnected from the simulation as quickly as they could. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "callbots")

They called $botname before their sight even came back to them. ‘Why’s there someone with you in the cave, what are they doing there?!’ Said $firstname, checking around them franticly for signs of any intruders in their room. ‘Apologies, user $lastname, statement provided is incorrect. Perimeter has not been compromised.’ ‘But I just saw them, when you updated the immersion!’ ‘No intrusion has been registered in this location for the duration of operations. Apologies for this unit’s lack of diligence. Would you like this unit to file an error report with Error Logistics Incorporated?’ ‘No, don’t. Hang on a moment.’ $firstname pulled up their overlay and selected the diagnostic app that had come with the robots. They could have paid extra for 24hr servicing, but it was done by another robot anyway (even if it sounded like a human on the call), so what was the point? They delved into the directory. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "callbots2")

They skimmed through the event logs for any reported intrusions, looking back as far as the previous day, to no avail. There was just a list of rocks removed, images and scans taken, but nothing to do with intruders. Nothing. They were going mad. They stared blankly at the screen emulation in front of them. Was it some kind of strange glitch, or... And then they noticed what they were staring at. In the log, each action the robot took was numbered and dated. The two consecutive numbers they were staring at were numbered ‘3657’ and ‘3660’. Someone had deleted two entries in the log. Which meant someone //was// at the caves, messing with $firstname’s robots. This research was too important to lose to a competitor. It was their big break, and could even lead to some kind of stable academic employment. Before they left town, $firstname stopped off at the hardware store and printed themselves a torch and a gun. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "returntocaves")

The gun was surprisingly light. In the pulpy noir immersions that $firstname played, guns were heavy things; all oil and metallic smells. This thing was plastic the whole way through. Translucent white with black details. It was one of the cheapest blueprints the self-defence companies offered. They clutched it tightly as they made their way through the dark streets of the abandoned zone, leering accusingly at the gaping shop fronts, long bereft of glass. They’d never considered buying a gun before, but they weren’t usually this on edge. That familiar painful lump in the back of $firstname’s throat returned. They took a slightly different route than before to confuse anyone who might be tailing them; that was presumably how they’d had found the dig-site in the first place, and $firstname didn’t want them knowing they were coming. The shadows of cattle were projected against the white plastic walls of a rearing shed. One of them sneezed loudly and sent a momentary terrified shock through $firstname’s body. Their ears were straining to hear signs of movement above the noise of the server farms, pylons, their own pulse, and that irritating scritch-scratch just on the edge of their hearing. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "diary6")

$old[ ==> 5th December 1883 <== I’ve just made it back from my latest excursion into the cave, made possible as the workmen have finished shored up a few of the more unstable, potentially dangerous sections with some wooden beams. I’m sure I looked rather ridiculous in my overalls and workman’s cap, but I felt so excited, like a Christopher Columbus for the modern era! The paintings really are quite fantastic down there – stags and huge cows, and hundreds of little figures. I tried sketching some of them myself, but my drawing skills were never that wonderful, and the scenes are so complex. Hopefully those photographs will be with me soon, or else I am going to have very little evidence to provide when I present my findings to the royal society! Finally the workmen are finished excavating the section I asked them – they could have finished earlier, but I wanted them to be careful not to damage any of the paintings on the walls in the process. The foreman seemed to think that the clay blockage wasn’t natural, but some kind of deliberate wall. He didn’t seem at all happy to break it down, thinking that the markings in the clay were some kind of magic or curse. The money I was offering seemed to get past his medieval superstitions, though. Beyond the blockage is another chamber. Strange red dust covers the floor, and at the centre of the space is a large hole, how deep I do not know. There are more paintings on the walls here too – so many, it is like they dance in the candlelight! Still no relics or objects to sell, unfortunately, just a few coils of ancient rope. Sadly, it seems that when one piece of excitement arrives, another passes. Florence hasn’t been without her room for two whole days now – I fear the cold she came down with the other night has developed into something worse. Her maid reports troubled sleep. I shall call on her and regale her with my exploits in the caves as soon as I am able, that should have her back to health in no time!] ==> (live:)[(if: time > 10s)[(link-goto: "-->", "procrastinate")[(stop:)]]]

$firstname peered down into the darkness for a long time before they began to descend the rope. The hairs on the back of their neck stood up in response to imaginary eyes in the darkness. They walked through the caves(set: $gun to ", resting their gun arm on the wrist of the hand holding the torch – like they had seen in an old X-Files episode")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='[", resting their gun arm on the wrist of the hand holding the torch – like they had seen in an old X-Files episode", ", pausing at every corner and peeking around the edge, like they were in a shoot-em-up immersion", " as quietly as possible, flinching at every loose stone they kicked"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$gun");'>$gun</tw-link>. It seemed a lot bigger in real life, without the artificial lighting. The smell was here too, cool and dry, but with an almost imperceptible acerbic edge to it from the limestone. How //had// it stayed so dry in such a wet part of the world? The bots weren’t in the main chamber. The torchlight was more yellow than the light on the walls in the immersion; it lent the paintings more life, somehow. $firstname walked down the newly-cleared passageway, following the line of slave’s feet further into the earth. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "slavepassage")

The feet became people as the passage extended beyond the collapsed section. They performed their morbid procession alongside $firstname, the tallyman watching and counting as they passed. The passage dropped down and twisted around until it reached a chamber, once more filled with cave paintings. It felt hot and dry, and the floor was covered in a red dust that scuffed up into little clouds around $firstname’s feet. They swung their torch around the space and spotted the bots; they were all gathered in a circle at the centre of the room. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "foundbots")

$firstname approached the circle of bots slowly, swinging the torch out to the darker corners of the space to ensure the intruder wasn’t still there. They realised as they got closer that the bots were powered down. They were like a tiny metal henge, gathered around a large dark hole. $firstname (set: $athole1 to "tried turning the bots back on")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["tried turning the bots back on", "peered into the hole", "checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$athole1");'>$athole1</tw-link>. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "athole1")

(if: $athole1 is "tried turning the bots back on")[They didn’t respond. Perhaps they were out of batteries? It seemed unlikely; they were supposed to run for a month on one charge. It seemed more likely that the intruder had broken them in some way. They waggled a finger in their ear, trying to get rid of that annoying scritch-scratch sound, and then (set: $athole2 to "peered into the hole")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["peered into the hole", "checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$athole2");'>$athole2</tw-link>.]{ }(if: $athole1 is "peered into the hole")[The torchlight illuminated only the first few feet of the hole; the rest was deep darkness, who knew how far it went down? It looked as if the opening had once been a fissure in the rock, but here had been opened out by tools to create a wider maw over an arm span wide. It was difficult for $firstname to tell above the frustrating scritch-scratch in their ear, but it seemed from the echo of their whistle that there was a much larger space beneath. It made them feel uneasy, like swimming on the surface of a very deep, dark lake. $firstname (set: $athole2 to "tried turning the bots back on")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["tried turning the bots back on", "checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$athole2");'>$athole2</tw-link>.]{ }(if: $athole1 is "checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder")[$firstname stepped away from the bots and hole at the centre of the room and studied the space around them. There were a few dark corners hidden from the centre of the room by crevices or spurs of rock. They nervously shone the torch into these potential hiding places, gun at the ready. Dust fell through the torch beam. They heard nothing but that frustrating scritch-scratch. There was nobody there. They looked for footprints in the fine, earth-red dust which coated the floor and realised something very strange. There were no footprints but their own, but the dust had been shaped into a pattern, like a Zen garden, with concentric circles and radial lines emanating out from the central hole. Further out there were strange arcs and other, more esoteric shapes; glyphs surrounded by circles. $firstname realised that the henge of bots had also been included into the pattern. Somebody must have altered the shapes recently for the bots to be included, but why? $firstname (set: $athole2 to "tried turning the bots back on")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["tried turning the bots back on", "peered into the hole"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$athole2");'>$athole2</tw-link>.] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "athole2")

(if: $athole1 is "tried turning the bots back on" and $athole2 is "peered into the hole")[The torchlight illuminated only the first few feet of the hole; the rest was deep darkness, who knew how far it went down? The opening looked as if it had once been a fissure in the rock that had been opened out by tools to create a wider maw over an arm span wide. It was difficult for $firstname to tell above the frustrating scritch-scratch in their ear, but it seemed from the echo of their whistle that there was a much larger space beneath. It made them feel uneasy, like swimming on the surface of a very deep, dark lake. They turned around, to search the cave for any signs of an intruder.(set: $consiquence to "intruder")]{ }(if: $athole1 is "tried turning the bots back on" and $athole2 is "checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder")[$firstname stepped away from the bots and hole at the centre of the room and studied the space around them. There were a few dark corners hidden from the centre of the room by crevices and spurs of rock. They nervously shone the torch into these potential hiding places, gun at the ready. Dust fell through the torch beam. They heard nothing but that frustrating scritch-scratch. There was nobody there. They looked for footprints in the fine earth-red dust which coated the floor and realised something very strange. There were no footprints other than their own, but the dust had been shaped into a pattern, like a Zen garden, with concentric circles and radial lines emanating out from the central hole. Further out there were strange arcs and other, more esoteric shapes; glyphs surrounded by circles. $firstname realised that the henge of bots had also been included into the pattern. Somebody must have altered the shapes recently for the bots to be included, but why? They stepped over to the hole, and peered down into its depths.(set: $consiquence to "hole")]{ }(if: $athole1 is "peered into the hole" and $athole2 is "tried turning the bots back on")[They didn’t respond. Perhaps they were out of batteries? It seemed unlikely; they were supposed to run for a month on one charge. It seemed more likely that the intruder had broken them in some way. They waggled a finger in their ear, trying to get rid of that annoying scritch-scratch sound, and then checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder.(set: $consiquence to "intruder")]{ }(if: $athole1 is "peered into the hole" and $athole2 is "checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder")[$firstname stepped away from the bots and hole at the centre of the room and studied the space around them. There were a few dark corners hidden from the centre of the room by crevices and spurs of rock. They nervously shone the torch into these potential hiding places, gun at the ready. Dust fell through the torch beam. They heard nothing but that frustrating scritch-scratch. There was nobody there. They looked for footprints in the fine earth-red dust which coated the floor and realised something very strange. There were no footprints other than their own, but the dust had been shaped into a pattern, like a Zen garden, with concentric circles and radial lines emanating out from the central hole. Further out there were strange arcs and other, more esoteric shapes; glyphs surrounded by circles. $firstname realised that the henge of bots had also been included in the pattern. Somebody must have altered the shapes recently for the bots to be included, but why? They stepped over to the bots, and reached out to turn them on.(set: $consiquence to "bots")]{ }(if: $athole1 is "checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder" and $athole2 is "tried turning the bots back on")[They didn’t respond. Perhaps they were out of batteries? It seemed unlikely; they were supposed to run for a month on one charge. It seemed more likely that the intruder had broken them in some way. They waggled a finger in their ear, trying to get rid of that annoying scritch-scratch sound, and then turned their attention to the hole beside them.(set: $consiquence to "hole")]{ }(if: $athole1 is "checked the surrounding area more carefully for an intruder" and $athole2 is "peered into the hole")[The torchlight illuminated only the first few feet of the hole; the rest was deep darkness, who knew how far it went down? It looked as if the opening had once been a fissure in the rock, and had been opened out by tools to create a wider maw over an arm span wide. It was difficult for $firstname to tell above the frustrating scritch-scratch in their ear, but it seemed from the echo of their whistle that there was a much larger space beneath. It made them feel uneasy, like swimming on the surface of a very deep, dark lake. They turned to the bots and reached out to turn them on.(set: $consiquence to "bots")] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "athole3")

(if: $consiquence is "bots")[$firstname only pressed the button on one of the bots, but all of them started up simultaneously. This time there was no wait for them to initialise; it happened immediately. The little green lights flashed on, and then each of the small bots began to move around the hole in the centre of the room anti-clockwise. They dragged their cuboid bodies along, slowly, as if they were injured. They left trails in the red dust which slowly reformed after them, the particles jumping back like a reversed recording. The larger bot hovered over the centre of the hole, spinning in time with the slow rotation of the small bots. And then the dust started to pile up against $firstname’s shoes as it moved anti-clockwise with the robots’ rotation. They looked down and saw it shift like iron filings under the influence of a magnet. The strange, Zen-garden-like markings rotated with the movement. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "botsend")]{ }(if: $consiquence is "hole")[The torchlight illuminated only the first few feet of the hole; the rest was deep darkness, who knew how far it went down? The opening had once been a fissure in the rock, but here had been opened out by tools to create a wider maw over an arm span wide. $firstname knelt down at the edge of the hole and dropped a nearby stone into its depths. They listened hard, but didn't hear any noise of the stone hitting the bottom or any walls. They yelled, trying to gauge the size of the invisible space below from the reverberations. It was only then they realised. They couldn't hear their own voice. All of a sudden it was if they had lifted their head out from underwater. All the details became sharper. At last they realised that they’d spent a long time hearing a noise without noticing, just one noise and nothing else; the scritch-scratching of pen on paper had been like a clock in an empty room, inaudible in its monotony, until you noticed it. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "holeend")]{ }(if: $consiquence is "intruder")[$firstname stepped away from the bots and hole at the centre of the room and studied the space around them. There were a few dark corners hidden from the centre of the room by spurs of rock or crevices. They nervously shone the torch into these potential hiding places, gun at the ready. Dust fell through the torch beam. They heard nothing but that frustrating scritch-scratch. There was nobody there. They looked for footprints in the fine earth-red dust which coated the floor and realised something very strange. The dust had been shaped into a pattern, like a Zen garden, with concentric circles and radial lines emanating out from the central hole. Further out there were strange arcs and other, more esoteric, glyph-like shapes surrounded by circles. $firstname realised that the henge of bots had also been included into the pattern. Somebody must have altered the shapes recently for the bots to be included, but why? ==> (link-goto: "-->", "footprintend")]

And there, some way away out of the corner of $firstname’s eye, for just a moment, was a footprint that wasn’t theirs. It was the movement of it disappearing that drew their eye. And all of a sudden it was if they had lifted their head out from underwater. All the details became sharper, sounds flooded back. At last they realised that they had spent a long time hearing a noise without noticing; the scritch-scratching of pen on paper had been like a clock in an empty room, inaudible in its monotony, until it stopped. And stranger still, they had not noticed the little green dot in the corner of their vision that indicated their overlay was active. The footstep reappeared, closer this time, it’s twin beside it. And closer. The red dust reformed perfectly behind. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "footprintend2")

Once again that hard, painful lump returned to $firstname’s throat. Their heart hammered. They switched off the overlay. (click-append: "They switched off the overlay.")[(set: $overlayoff to it + 1) A dark figure walked towards them, its face in shadow. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.(live: 1s)[(replace: "A dark figure walked towards them, its face in shadow. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.")[The overlay switched back on. (display: "overlayonoff")](stop:)]]

(if: $overlayoff is 1)[(click-append: "They switched off the overlay.")[(set: $overlayoff to it + 1) A dark figure stepped towards them, its face in shadow. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.(live: 1s)[(replace: "The overlay switched back on.")[](replace: "A dark figure stepped towards them, its face in shadow. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.")[The overlay switched back on. The footsteps moved closer.(display: "overlayonoff")](stop:)]]]{ }(if: $overlayoff is 2)[(click-append: "They switched off the overlay.")[(set: $overlayoff to it + 1) A dark figure stepped towards them, its face in shadow. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.(live: 1s)[(replace: "The overlay switched back on. The footsteps moved closer.")[](replace: "A dark figure stepped towards them, its face in shadow. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.")[The overlay switched back on. The footsteps moved closer.(display: "overlayonoff")](stop:)]]]{ }(if: $overlayoff is 3)[(click-append: "They switched off the overlay.")[(set: $overlayoff to it + 1) A dark figure stepped towards them. Its eyes were two dark holes. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.(live: 1s)[(replace: "The overlay switched back on. The footsteps moved closer.")[](replace: "A dark figure stepped towards them. Its eyes were two dark holes. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.")[The overlay switched back on. The footsteps moved closer. $firstname began to retreat.(display: "overlayonoff")](stop:)]]]{ }(if: $overlayoff is 4)[(click-append: "They switched off the overlay.")[(set: $overlayoff to it + 1) A dark figure stepped closer towards them. Its eyes were two dark holes. It had no mouth. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.(live: 1s)[(replace: "The overlay switched back on. The footsteps moved closer. " + $firstname + " began to retreat.")[](replace: "A dark figure stepped closer towards them. Its eyes were two dark holes. It had no mouth. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.")[The overlay switched back on. The footsteps moved closer. $firstname moved back.(display: "overlayonoff")](stop:)]]]{ }(if: $overlayoff is 5)[(click-append: "They switched off the overlay.")[(set: $overlayoff to it + 1) A dark figure stepped closer towards them. It was strangely tall and stretched out. Its eyes were two dark holes. It had no mouth. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.(live: 1s)[(replace: "The overlay switched back on. The footsteps moved closer. " + $firstname + " moved back.")[](replace: "A dark figure stepped closer towards them. It was strangely tall and stretched out. Its eyes were two dark holes. It had no mouth. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other.")[The overlay switched back on. The footsteps were very close. $firstname scrabbled back.(display: "overlayonoff")](stop:)]]]{ }(if: $overlayoff > 5)[(click-append: "They switched off the overlay.")[(replace: "The overlay switched back on. The footsteps were very close. " + $firstname + " scrabbled back.")[](set: $overlayoff to it + 1) A dark figure stepped up to them. It was strangely tall and stretched out. Its eyes were two dark holes. It had no mouth. It wore a long robe. It held a book in one hand, a pen in the other. Its skin was rotting. It was almost touching them. $firstname [[leapt back]]]]

$firstname leapt back and the ground was no longer there. (link-reveal: "$firstname screamed")[, as they began to fall. (link-reveal: "$firstname $lastname screamed")[, as those hollow eyes peered over the edge of the hole. (link-reveal: "They screamed")[, not for the falling, but for what they knew would catch them(live: 10s)[(goto: "flashback4")]]]].

All the footprints they left had now gone, and the bots began to move faster and the glyphs in the sand moved with them, some bands moving clockwise, against the flow. As $firstname looked around themselves they felt no surprise or amazement; it was like they had just been told a fact by a friend who clearly thought it was astonishing, but which they had known all along. And then something passed through the cave, like the beat of an enormous drum. It passed through their chest. It lifted the dust off the ground momentarily. It was so low they could not hear it. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "botsend2")

Then the second beat came, and the third, and this time it was longer, more drawn out, and the dust raised up, the glyphs becoming strange mountains stretched out from the floor as they spun around. The dust raised in a wave, emanating out from the hole in the centre of the room. The pace of the beats picked up, going through and past the pace of a heart until it was something akin to a techno beat, and then faster still. And the dust rose with it, not spraying into a cloud as $firstname would have imagined, but forming hard, writhing shapes which cavorted and spun, their peaks reaching up to $firstname's chest. They stood and stared at the beauty of these shapes around them, letting the dust wash up against their body. A thought passed idly through their head; it reminded them of a video they had watched a few weeks back about ferromagnetic liquids on speakers. The thought brought them back to themselves for a moment; that there was a world outside this cave where they had sat quietly in a London coffee shop and watched internet videos seemed at first unfathomably strange. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "botsend3")

And then this consideration opened the door for $firstname to consider other things, like ‘why can’t I hear anything?’ It wasn’t just the low fast beat they could feel in their chest, but the sound of the shifting dust, the sound of their own breathing. And all of a sudden it was if they had lifted their head out from underwater. All the details became sharper. At last they realised that they had spent a long time hearing a noise without noticing, to the detriment of all else; the scritch-scratching of pen on paper had been like a clock in an empty room, inaudible in its monotony, until you noticed it. A hand was on their shoulder. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "botsend4")

They turned and the hands were then on both shoulders shaking them. A man was facing them, his eyes open but not seeing. He was shouting something that couldn’t be heard over the sound of pen on paper that seemed to fill their ears entirely. It was their alarm, but he was stretched out, slightly taller than before. They were asleep, so they woke up. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "botsend5")

They awoke in their hotel room, and beside them in the shadows that hadn’t been there before a man sat on a stone chair. He put down the book and pen he was holding on a stone stand which wasn’t there before. A message was waiting in their neurochip inbox, from their bots. They opened it automatically. ‘We have found something very great, you must come and see,’ was all it said. When he stood up, $firstname saw that the stranger in their room was unnaturally tall, and had no eyes or mouth. It didn’t stop $firstname from hearing when it spoke. ‘It is time to get to work,’ it said quietly, so nobody else could hear. Deep in their chest, $firstname could feel a soundless beating. It moved them more than they could have hoped. They closed their eyes. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "flashback4")

$old[ ==> 24th December 1883 <== So much has happened since I last wrote in this little book. I can hardly bear to recount the events, but I feel I must leave something of myself behind. Five days ago my dear Florence woke up from her fitful sleep in the midst of night. The maid said her eyes were blank and she walked as one asleep. She would say nothing but that she had to go. Afraid of some further malaise the maid ran to get the doctor, and returned only in time to see the poor girl disappear into the caves. Naturally the fetched me before they ventured in, but oh – I wish they had not, that they had ran to stop her there and then!] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "lastdiary2")

(set: $ending to "hole")They waggled their fingers in their ears, then hit them with the palm of their hand and shook their head; nothing helped. The scritch-scratch just kept going. They couldn’t hear their heart beating, but they could feel it accelerate, and could feel the rush of hot and cold and the onset of sudden sweating. One thought kept running through their head. $firstname closed their eyes. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "flashback4")

After they’d eaten dinner, (if: $hotel is "sleepstall")[a vending machine pouch from some new soylent company that they got free with their stay](if: $hotel is "old")[a passable attempt at bangers and mash (they’d used real potatoes, but the sausages were mainly cellulose filler)](if: $hotel is "premierinn")[something the bar-arm had produced from a heated cabinet that purported to be a cheese burger ($firstname carefully picked out the ‘cheese’)], they checked the news and headed to bed. A (either: "superstorm raged over Shanghai, it had killed 65 people so far.", "merger had been agreed between two large tech companies", "panda cub had been born from the first successful artificial womb", "cell of climate extremists had been arrested and charged with terrorist offences, including ‘intent to organise disruptions of crucial labour forces’ and ‘property damage’", "new iteration of superblight had swept through the Ukraine, destroying the region’s food production capabilities – which were previously thought to be highly resistant to the blight given the new genetic modifications used on the wheat there"). In the business section there was a piece about the development of advertising on neurochips during users’ dreams; ‘It opens up whole new markets for expansion,’ the commentator said, ‘and there is potential for renewed growth in struggling existing markets, given the probable increase in consumer spending. Together with the government’s renewed support for underwriting consumer spending loans, this could do very positive things for the economy. ‘The main issue at this point is the extreme changeability of dreams; the way they slide from one situation to another so quickly. If advertisers are going to buy dreamspace, then Interface and other neurochip companies are going to need to find a way to override or disable this element of the dream cycle in consumers, at least temporarily.’ ==> (link-goto: "-->", "diary3")

$firstname decided to walk to Paddington; it was a good hour away but even with the new tube tracks it was easier and less expensive than the underground or the bus. Before they left the house they pulled their smogscarf tighter. They tried to get onto the tourist trails as soon as possible. They heaved with people, but were much safer – the pretty boulevards and shops were a sharp contrast to the squalid side streets that housed the labourers that worked there. Sun lamps cast bright white light down into these streets which would otherwise be hidden from the thick orange smoglight at this early hour. Guards wearing sharp black suits and sunglasses hefted submachine guns, protecting the absent inhabitants of snazzy glass investment blocks. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "street2")

Where the boulevards meandered too much it was quicker to cut across some of the back streets to get to the station. They set off down a tight street, where the neon sign of a tanning salon illuminated the shadowy pathway into the darker parts of the city. A couple of young men standing outside a chain pub coughed up lumps of phlegm onto the pavement between drags on their cigarettes. They looked older than they were. On the balcony of a tower block above someone was being robbed at knifepoint. A handful of used scratch-cards spilled out from their open handbag and floated down to $firstname as they passed below. $firstname walked into a dark underpass, and the walls and ceiling which had been covered in layers of old graffiti moments before became bright mirrors, the space awash with white light. $firstname (set: $underpassad to "looked across at their reflection and saw themselves in fabulous clothes, gold and silver draped over their perfect skin, their smile glowing back at them")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["looked across at their reflection and saw themselves in fabulous clothes, gold and silver draped over their perfect skin, their smile glowing back at them", "looked at their reflection and saw themselves clutching an enormous perfume bottle, surrounded by a gang of reporters with their camerabots", "saw themselves reflected back, the centre of a throng of friends, people they had known from school, people they had not seen for so very long, all happily chatting away together", "looked very resolutely forward, trying to ignore the little banners rendered at the edges of their vision by their neurochip, asking them to choose between two adverts"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$underpassad");'>$underpassad</tw-link>. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "street3")

(if: $underpassad is "looked across at their reflection and saw themselves in fabulous clothes, gold and silver draped over their perfect skin, their smile glowing back at them")[In their reflection they walked along a glorious French regency hallway, with long portraits of famous people and themselves hanging on the walls in gilded frames. In the corner of every painting, on the royal-looking crests that hung over the many fireplaces, and on the tags hanging from the corners of their clothes were a red V and S, in a flowing script. When they’d reached halfway through the underpass they began to hear the noise of an angry mob in the distance, outside the walls of this beautiful palace. As the noise began to grow louder, the image began to fade into a massive image of the 'VS' logo, with the clothes they had been wearing poised tastefully below. Quietly, a woman's voice said in $firstname's ear, ‘//Versailles and Seremont//; hold on to beauty while it lasts.’ $firstname reached the end of the underpass sooner than they expected, and narrowly avoided bumping into]{ }(if: $underpassad is "looked at their reflection and saw themselves clutching an enormous perfume bottle, surrounded by a gang of reporters with their camerabots")[They knew the figure in the mirror was supposed to be them, but it looked too beautiful and thin. This alter-self pressed down on the bottle, spraying a plume of perfume into the air, and $firstname smelled it. It was citrusy and fresh, with hints of the seaside in there too; not the smell of the polluted, cold beaches that littered the coast of the Isle of Britain, but the smell of some imagined beach on the Côte d'Azur in high summer, all warmth and gentle salty breeze. A man’s voice was in their ear: the sound of honey and cigarettes. A powerful, confident voice. ‘Change is easy,’ he said, ‘it’s just around the corner. What makes a person is that moment of decision,’ the reflected reporters silently hollered, their cameradrones snapping away, and everything was suddenly lustrous and bright as it hadn't been before, ‘that moment of clarity when you become who you want to be. When you //Crystallise//.’ And as he said that last word, the word which was splashed across the imaginary perfume bottle, the smell intensified and a high whistle played and the image in the mirror faded into a cluster of beautiful perfume bottles surrounded by bright, lemon yellow light. $firstname stepped out of the underpass and narrowly avoided bumping into]{ }(if: $underpassad is "saw themselves reflected back, the centre of a throng of friends, people they had known from school, people they had not seen for so very long, all happily chatting away together")[Big speech bubbles appeared above their friends’ heads, each filled with a bright emoji. Their friends were young, younger than they were then. Chrissie’s hair was super long like it used to be; curls like waterfalls that bounced as she skipped along. She had cut it short when she got the job at Petra. Alex was wearing the fake pair of glasses they’d had until someone told them they were pretentious. Jeorg was here too. As $firstname walked through the underpass, each of their old friends faded away, and they walked on their own. They passed little windows to cafés and clubs where their friends danced without them, chatted animatedly around cups of steaming coffee. There were some real moments thrown in, music festivals and gigs $firstname had been unable to make it to but had seen the pictures of later, a birthday party or two. There was quiet piano music, muffled laughter. All these faded once more and became white writing on black, splashed across the walls: ‘Don’t get left behind. //Connekt//.’ And then, finally, a little (link-reveal: "notification")[ (‘James and Ikiri are talking about Spanish interior design. Join the conversation. //Connekt//.’)] – which $firstname had turned off a week or two ago, after their encounter with a Connekt advert – popped up in the corner of their vision, and the walls showed what was happening now; a video of Alex’s kids screaming and running around with water pistols that had been posted a few hours before. $firstname stepped out of the underpass, and narrowly avoided bumping into]{ }(if: $underpassad is "looked very resolutely forward, trying to ignore the little banners rendered at the edges of their vision by their neurochip, asking them to choose between two adverts")[One of the adverts was for a new immersive game that had just been released, //Warfare Forever//, the other was for an adaptation of a comic book they used to read as a kid, //Blimp//. The audio of the two clashed jarringly, but $firstname gritted their teeth and looked stoically ahead, quickening their pace. They looked past the pulsating banners to the end of the tunnel, where they saw] a police officer who had his back to them. There was a group of them, gathered in a circle around another officer who was knelt on the back of a woman, pushing her face into the ground. ‘I just want to go back in and get my things!’ She sobbed. ‘Unless you settle your debt with the owner, you have no legal right to anything contained within the property,’ said one of the officers, clearly reading off a script on their neurochip. $firstname instinctively looked away and blocked the sound of the woman crying, then walked silently on to the train station. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "station")

$old[ ==> 10th December 1883 <== Once again there is good news and bad. Firstly, the developed pictures have arrived in the post from Ezekiel! Unfortunately I cannot make heads or tails of them. The camera he used must be of the poorest sort, almost without fail the pictures are so dark they bear no details of the caves, even under great scrutiny. Damn that man, especially considering the manner with which they were sent to me. I had written to him recently, asking after the pictures and mentioning the improvement of my conditions here, given my friendly relations with Florence. The pictures came with a short note: ‘Look to your current wife before seeking another.’ Blasted man, he knows it isn’t that simple. Perhaps I should send for a proper artist to come and make studies for my address to the Royal Society – the master of the seminary refuses to lend me another boy! I suppose the hardest thing will be finding a reputable artist who is willing to work in these conditions. I shall post an advert in the Times. On closer inspection, there are a few details I can make out from the camera pictures. There seems to be the shape of a human shadow on one of them, a patch of darkness deeper than the surrounding blackness. It must be the result of all those damned candles. It’s rather unsettling, when studied at length – it almost seems to be a human figure, and you might be fooled into thinking it was, if it wasn’t for the elongated nature of the limbs that reveals it to be someone’s shadow. I do not think much of these new ‘photographic’ technologies. More bad news – Florence has yet to recover from her malady. Lord knows what has caused it. I had the maid sneak me in to see her yesterday, and I brought her some flowers from the pretty stream we walked along, before she fell so ill. She looked deathly pale, was drenched in sweat and thrashed in her sleep like a woman possessed! I dared not touch her, lest it is infectious, but I said a few kind words to her. The maid says that when she is awake, all she talks of is judgement, as if she is to be convicted of some great crime! How something so innocent could ever feel that way is beyond me. I seem to have taken her suffering somewhat to heart, no doubt due to my affection for her. The worry is clearly affecting me deeply; for the last two nights I have had a strange dream. I am standing by the hole in the caves, watching for movement in its depths, waiting for something, and then there is a horrible feeling that I am being judged. A man stands beside me, writing all of my misdemeanours down in a little book. I feel the weight of my sins, like great rocks on my back, and I know the only way to escape them is to jump down the hole, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it. I drop a stone down, a substitute for myself, for my sins, but it is thrown back up again by some unseen force. Perhaps it is time to leave this place. ==> (live:)[(if: time > 10s)[(link-goto: "-->", "lookforbotsincave")[(stop:)]]]]

//A dream of an empty room: white light through curtains, everything real had been removed, everything that was theirs, now just these projections of how your life could look here; unreasonably bright and happy in this space that was theirs. But through closed eyes the place it was, the person they were, blooms in the dark. Eventually the alarm arrives. Eyes open.// ==> (link-goto: "-->", "intro")

//A dream of an empty room: white light through curtains, everything real had been removed, everything that was theirs, now just these (link: "projections")[garish neuro-visions] of how your life could look here; unreasonably bright and happy in this space that was theirs. But through closed eyes (set: $place to "the place it was,")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["the familiar flat", "that rancid squat", "the hollow mansion"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$place");'>$place</tw-link> (set: $person to "the person they were,")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["plastered in revolutionary posters", "her groove left in the sofa", "the baby clothes laid out"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$person");'>$person</tw-link> blooms in the dark. Eventually the alarm arrives. Eyes open. ==> (live:)[(if: $place is not "the place it was," and $person is not "the person they were,")[(link-goto: "-->", "backinroom")(stop:)]]//

The station known as Paddington had changed a lot from the original Victorian design. $firstname had watched a few videos about it whilst researching the current Victoriana craze for work. It occupied roughly the same geographical space, but there were five times as many platforms as in the original construction, and the sweeping metal arches of the roof had been replaced. A new atrium had been constructed – a criss-crossing of white elevators beneath a glass dome displaying a fake blue sky interspersed with a few wispy clouds. Floating attendant bots waited to convey people's luggage to the correct trains, but they cost too much for $firstname. Many of the store fronts of the eateries in the station had their names written in flowing ‘Victorian’ script, and the sales bots were dressed up in top hats and flouncy lace. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "train")

It took some time before $firstname plucked up the courage to immerse into the virtual caves once more. They made excuses to themselves for their procrastination, an attempt to avoid fully confronting the source of their unease. Instead they (set: $procrastinate to "went for a walk around the derelict buildings on the edge of town")<tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["went for a walk around the derelict buildings on the edge of town", "scrolled listlessly through social media", "called an old friend"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$procrastinate");'>$procrastinate</tw-link>. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "procrastinate2")

(if: $procrastinate is "went for a walk around the derelict buildings on the edge of town")[In one of the old shops, that looked to have been a small supermarket before, children raced down desolate isles in trolleys. Their screams filled the air and reminded $firstname of Alex’s band of naughty children. They wondered how they all were now, whether Alex was as happy as they made out online. Alex had never seemed one for a family life, but after their cooperative collapsed a rich husband to look after them must have seemed too good an opportunity to pass up. In their photos now they wore make-up and had grown out their hair.(if: $person is "the baby clothes laid out" and $place is "the hollow mansion")[$firstname felt a deep sense of solidarity with them, as they thought of the similarities in their lives, but they turned away from that line of thought, before it became too painful.] There was a crash as the children’s race became a jousting contest. $firstname wondered what made these children choose to play outdoors, rather than simply immersing into videogames like they did in London.]{ }(if: $procrastinate is "scrolled listlessly through social media")[When they went online they always felt a strange distance from real life, and a sense of loss that was difficult to reconcile with the smiling faces before them. It was a sting between the ribs, a feeling that they had left behind these people, cut them out of their life through necessity or plain laziness. They had to go where the work was, there was no time for friends. But here they all were, their lives laid out before $firstname, like a pack of cards before a dealer, and yet they rarely connected, $fistname just lurked in the margins and hoped nobody would notice. //Luis and Phil are talking about dream augmentation and Victorian Aesthetics. Connekt.// An order, an entreaty? $firstname hovered over their conversation for a moment. They hadn’t spoken to Phil since a drunken night at some London archaeological convention, remonstrating over the price of the tickets for what they got in return. They’d had a lot of fun together that night. But it was too long ago.]{ }(if: $procrastinate is "called an old friend")[Usually, $firstname thought about what they were going to say when they called a friend. And usually they thought about it for long enough to dissuade them from calling altogether. They had the usual social anxieties when you haven’t talked to someone for a long time, that end up extending that period of non-communication, sometimes indefinitely. But just then, $firstname wanted something to take their mind off things, and they wanted someone to talk to. Besides, Gill was one of those friends you could talk to whenever, and it would be like you’d never been apart. She was a good friend. ‘$firstname,’ said Gill as the call connected, ‘How are you? It's been forever!’ There was the hubbub of conversation behind her voice. (link-goto: "‘I’m not bad, a little on edge. How are you? How's Dan?’", "call")] ==> (if: $procrastinate is not "called an old friend")[(link-goto: "-->", "immersedagain")]

//(display: "flashback3"){ }(if: $detail is "plans")[Here they schemed blockades of power plants, illegal solidarity strikes, worthy slogans painted on walls, marches, chants, community co-ops. Who would have thought a mere banner drop could have ended it all?]{ }(if: $detail is "banners")[Slogans for the revolution, divestment, boycott, solidarity, taken as evidence in the end. They were always so careful not to let their faces be seen. How could a mere banner drop have ended it all?]{ }(if: $detail is "walls")[An ear against a wall; the mouldering paper remembers the whispered late night schemes, the laughter and the songs, Solidarity Forever! Bella Ciao! The screams and frustrated cries as the swat team rolled in, all over one banner drop.]{ }(if: $detail is "memories")[So much in this place had been forgotten. If the walls remembered human life, their breath and words, they were keeping it quiet. And it was quiet between them, with no shared memories left they were both alone; mother on a rare beach trip long before children, the way the sun fell onto her husband’s chest, so warm and inviting, the present washed away in the waves.]{ }(if: $detail is "photographs")[They wondered if those images, those frozen moments in time meant anything to her, or if, like them, those photos were unable to reach into her world, her own frozen moment: a rare beach trip long before they were born, the way the sun fell onto her husband’s chest, so warm and inviting, the present washed away in the waves.]{ }(if: $detail is "ghosts")[She still saw them, the ghosts of those long gone in place of her child. They wondered whether she talked to them when they weren’t there; if, when making tea she remembered a rare beach trip long before they were born, the way the sun fell onto her husband’s chest, so warm and inviting, the present washed away in the waves, the water cold.]{ }(if: $detail is "clean")[All the normal anxieties of parenthood were here; its shadows etched into their faces. An expected scene, but also a mask for the hyperventilating fear that squirmed beneath. They laid out the baby clothes together.]{ }(if: $detail is "improvements")[A child would bring improvements to their life; a gradual change for the better, a possible end to their problems, that’s what their partner said. They laid out the baby clothes together.]{ }(if: $detail is "life")[A new life. Would it be like their own? Would they do better at navigating this strange and harsh world? Would they fail miserably, pass on their own failings, cause suffering where before there was blissful non-existence? They laid out the baby clothes together.]// ==> (link-goto: "-->", "diary5")

//A dream of a room no longer empty, through closed eyes: (if: $person is "plastered in revolutionary posters" and $place is "the familiar flat")[Student digs, dug into a rut when their courses ended, where once they made plans amongst deliveries for the food co-op. Where bikes and placards jostled for space behind the sofa; the cupboard filled with banners, the walls covered in posters. ]{ }(if: $person is "plastered in revolutionary posters" and $place is "that rancid squat")[An old warehouse, made theirs. A leaking roof, no water or electric until they pooled their cash for a solar panel and water butt. Inside was a mess of sleeping bags, makeshift cardboard partitions, an improvised kitchen where they made plans and cooked on a rocket stove. Not much, but made theirs; the shopping trolley filled with banners the hallway where bikes and placards jostled, the posters on the damp walls. ]{ }(if: $person is "plastered in revolutionary posters" and $place is "the hollow mansion")[He used to joke that they were champagne socialists, living in his daddy’s manor. But the old place had been long since looted by his grandfather’s gambling; he had never known that life. And now, in that hollow mansion, a new life bloomed: bikes and placards jostled amongst stacks of tins (deliveries for the food co-op), the larder overflowed with banners, on the walls posters multiplied. It was their headquarters, where they made their plans. ]{ (if: $person is "plastered in revolutionary posters" and $chosen is not "yes")[ (click: "plans")[(set: $detail to "plans")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] (click: "walls")[(set: $detail to "walls")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] (click: "banners")[(set: $detail to "banners")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] ] }(if: $person is "her groove left in the sofa" and $place is "the familiar flat")[The family home. This place where memories were made. The television, an ancient thing, but reassuringly familiar to some, in this confusing new world. Dust motes are caught, ghostlike, suspended in the orange smog light, before softly coating mantelpiece photographs; their subjects long gone. ]{ }(if: $person is "her groove left in the sofa" and $place is "that rancid squat")[They never had much, a family of squat-dwellers the only place for them and their poverty wages. The makeshift improvements, rocket stoves and shanty rooms of tin and plywood had survived the developers once through organisation, now through forgetful disregard. They’d all moved on to boxes in the ground, boxes behind bars, occasionally to better things. But she was still there, the ghosts of them around her looking out from photographs. ]{ }(if: $person is "her groove left in the sofa" and $place is "the hollow mansion")[The family estate. This place where memories dwell; the assembled ghosts of past children played with the same toys in the same nursery, and those of dinner guests with starched shirts and rigid backs could be unpacked like Russian dolls from these woodworm chairs. A grand mantelpiece covered in faded photographs; faces long since dead. ]{ (if: $person is "her groove left in the sofa" and $chosen is not "yes")[ (click: "forgetful")[(set: $detail to "memories")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] (click: "memories")[(set: $detail to "memories")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] (click: "photographs")[(set: $detail to "photographs") (set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] (click: "ghost")[(set: $detail to "ghosts")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] ] }(if: $person is "the baby clothes laid out" and $place is "the familiar flat")[This place that was theirs and theirs alone was readying itself for new life; no room for a nursery, but other home improvements; bright wallpaper in the corner, a cot lay expectant supplanting their old Hi-Fi, an heirloom from father. Everything was much cleaner than before. ]{ }(if: $person is "the baby clothes laid out" and $place is "that rancid squat")[They never had much, this abandoned factory was the only place for them and their poverty wages. The makeshift improvements, rocket stoves and shanty rooms of tin and plywood, were now joined by a Tupperware cot and salvaged changing station. It was rigorously clean, a penance for the sin of bringing new life here. ]{ }(if: $person is "the baby clothes laid out" and $place is "the hollow mansion")[The nursery was old, and it felt haunted by the memories of past childhoods, until their partner ordered the improvements: they felt it was a performance for them, a show of wealth so impressive and alien; bright colours and soft furnishings, painfully clean and modern, for the new modern life. ]{ (if: $person is "the baby clothes laid out" and $chosen is not "yes")[ (click: "clean")[(set: $detail to "clean")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] (click: "improvements")[(set: $detail to "improvements")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] (click: "life")[(set: $detail to "life")(set: $chosen to "yes")(goto: "flashback3.1")] ] } //

‘Oh, did you not see?’ ‘I... no?’ ‘Oh, right... we’re not, we’re not together any more.’ ‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry... I didn’t mean to -’ ‘Don’t worry,’ there was a smile in her tone, but $firstname couldn’t tell if it was genuine, ‘it wasn’t working out, I think it’s for the best.’ ‘Yeah... I, I’m sorry I should have checked online, or –’ ‘Really, don’t worry about it. Hey, why aren’t we on a video call? I want to see your lovely face!’ ‘I don’t have my camera with me,’ $firstname’s voice sounded apologetic. ‘Isn’t it in your finger? Oh I forget, you’re our little privacy warrior!’ She laughed. $firstname forced a chuckle. ‘Well I just think it’s kind of creepy, that’s all.’ ‘See, this is why I never see much of you, you aren’t on Connekt enough! So anyway, was there a reason you called?’ [[//I just wanted to hear a friendly voice//|call2]].

‘I... No, I just wanted to see how you were getting on, was all.’ ‘Aww well that’s really nice of you. I’m fine, really I am. I’m over him already. I’m actually waiting for a date right now!’ ‘Oh... really?’ ‘His name is Klaus. Isn’t that so silly? I’m not sold on him yet, but his bio vid looked cute.’ ‘Oh, right, listen I wanted to –’ ‘Ooh, I think that’s him, I’ve gotta go, I’ll call you later!’ The line went dead. ‘- ask you something.’ ==> (link-goto: "-->", "immersedagain")

//A vision of a room where all is laid bare.// (if: $person is "plastered in revolutionary posters")[//A man is sitting here. Georg is his name, he’s holding the balaclava, the one $firstname wore that day, the one they borrowed from him; theirs was in the wash. // (link-reveal: "They didn't secure the banner properly")[, so it fell and hit one of the security guards below. He had no serious injuries, but it was enough. // Before him: An old tablet computer, a red-top web page, black impact font, his face. // (link-reveal: "The papers were vicious")[. He hadn’t even been there, but it was his face plastered all over, it was him in the dock. // He’s holding the balaclava. It has bright red cheeks, a big smile. His face is blank. // (link-reveal: "They all had different designs")[ on their balaclavas. They thought it was funny; cute animals and emoji faces; a good media stunt. Three weeks earlier a security camera had seen him take it off down a side-street at a demo; it had been soaked with pepper spray. // His eyes are hollow, gaunt and scared; no tears left. // (link-reveal: "They dragged the court case out")[ for maximum exposure; they made an example out of him with their new aggressive rules. There was plenty of time for a counter-confession, but $firstname kept quiet. They gave him twenty years. // His neck is red, black, blue. // (link-reveal: "It was too much for him")[. He wasn’t strong enough, couldn’t take the thought of being in that disgusting place for so long. The papers had torn him apart, vicious hounds that had caught the fox. $firstname could have taken it, they know they could. He wasn’t even there. (if: $ending is "hole")[They [[opened their eyes.|holeend2]]]]]]]]]{ }(if: $person is "her groove left in the sofa")[//She’s sitting here in her groove, so well worn; Mother.// (link-reveal: "In the end")[ she would never get up from that spot. She’d sit there staring ahead, at some imaginary vista, or look at $firstname as if they were some stranger. //There are labels by the kettle, the stove, instructions on how to go about daily life.// (link-reveal: "She never read them")[, never even looked at them. It was like she didn’t want to be here, in this empty room any longer. She had given up. //Her face is so gaunt, so skeletal, her hands tremble like spiders webs in a light breeze; she could be blown away.// (link-reveal: "$firstname had left, in the end")[. They couldn’t take it any longer, getting home from work and having to care for this dying woman who didn’t know them. They felt so trapped, so alone, and even the thought of it now brings a tightness to their chest, a wretched internalised scream, a slow-burning panic. They tried not to think of how she had died, starving, confused. Alone. //And then, like the breeze had changed direction, she looks up warmth and love in her eyes ‘Hello $firstname,’ she says, smiling.// (link-reveal: "It was these moments")[ that $firstname tried to forget the most, to their shame. They happened once a day, when her mother would return, a short visit to see her child who cared for her body constantly. She was there when they left. ‘I’m just going out for some milk,’ they’d said. (if: $ending is "hole")[They [[opened their eyes.|holeend2]]]]]]]]{ }(if: $person is "the baby clothes laid out")[//The baby clothes no longer laid out, but on the baby, she gurgles in her cot. Her name is Katherine.// (link-reveal: "She looks happy")[, healthy, well cared for. $firstname knows she would be older than this now, but they have no pictures, no contact. //Next to her, a small toy rabbit; soft and warm, slightly chewed.// (link-reveal: "They left it beside her")[ that night, just before they left. They had thought a child would help, would solve their problems, but she just made things worse. //A small cough, red cheeks, her tiny hands outstretched.// (link-reveal: "They want to reach out")[, to pick her up in their arms, as they once did long before, but something stops them. They have been too long intentionally putting her out of mind, pushing her memory away, that now to move closer seems to make them feel sick and shaky; a transgression. //The crying starts, at first a low wail but then a full-lunged scream. How can such a noise come from one so small?// (link-reveal: "When you tell yourself something for long enough")[, you eventually start to believe it: it was the right thing to do, they felt so trapped, there was no other way, they were too young, their partner too controlling, they needed the freedom, they would have made a terrible parent. But here, seeing her again, they knew they had lied to themselves. What sort of parent abandons their child with someone they grew to hate so strongly? They must have some deficit of humanity, some essential lack of love. And what had they done with this ‘freedom’? Nothing. They had turned their thirty pieces of silver to lead. //She holds the rabbit with tiny balled fists and screams.// They had been so selfish. There was no excuse. (if: $ending is "hole")[They [[opened their eyes.|holeend2]]]]]]]] ==> (if: $ending is not "hole")[(link-goto: "-->", "lastdiary")]

There was a feeling in their chest, like someone had tied an anvil to their heart and dropped it into the hole. They felt very sick, they could hardly breathe. In front of them was a man. He was strangely tall and stretched out. He had no mouth. He wore a long robe. He was writing with a scritch-scratching in a little book. He looked at $firstname as someone who knew them so deeply, deeper than they knew themselves. He looked at them with hatred and they knew he was right to do so. He knew their guilt, their shame, and the fact he knew was worse than the pain of the guilt itself. There was no way to hide from his judgement, no way to explain away their actions, no reasoning with him. All the while he kept writing, and the noise kept coming. It filled their ears, and they knew what he wrote without looking. They had hidden from their sins for too long. ==> (link-goto: "-->", "lastdiary")

Thank you for playing $old[<h1>A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS</h1>] It was made by Charlie Dart using [Twine]<t|. Special thanks to Furkle for their cycling links addon, to greyelf for their help with the complexities of Twine’s syntax, and to Jack de Quidt for his excellent advice and friendship. (click: "Charlie Dart")[(goto-URL: "https://twitter.com/Charlie_Dart")](click: "cycling links addon")[(goto-URL: "https://furkleindustries.com/fictions/twine/twine2_resources/twine2_macros/#cyclinglinks")](click: "greyelf")[(goto-URL: "https://twinery.org/forum/profile/270/greyelf")](click: ?t)[(goto-URL: "https://twinery.org/")](click: "Jack de Quidt")[(goto-URL: "https://twitter.com/notquitereal")]

$old[By the time I reached her in the caves with the doctor at my heel, she was standing over the hole, looking down into its depths, as if trying to spy some movement therein. I called out to her, and she looked up to me – her face a picture of sorrow, the tears streaming down her face. And then she stepped forward, as if stepping out onto a grand staircase. Just like that she was gone. I can still see her beautiful golden hair rising up around her face as she fell. My dear Florence. What possible guilt could have compelled you so? My own guilt sits like a dreadful millstone on my chest now, as I write this. We, I and the damned Vicar who brought me here, that is, have had the local men construct a wooden frame around the hole, so that a person may be lowered in and haul out her body. We all lowered a man in, straining on the ropes together. A metre or two down his light went out and we all fell backwards for lack of resistance on the rope. We never saw him again. He made no noise.] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "lastdiary3")

$old[The rest of the men left shortly after that, a wild fear taking them. The Vicar left after them, saying a prayer as he went. I’ve been down here ever since. They collapsed the tunnel entrance earlier today. They must think I am dead. If I go down the rope I won’t be able to winch myself back again, I’ll have to climb. I’ll tie her to the end of the rope and drag her up when I reach the top. Somehow I feel if I manage it, I will have atoned for my sins in some small part. The weight of them upon me has stopped me acting so far; I will shed them or I shall sink down and never return.] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "lastdiary4")

$old[The thought of her in that place weighs on me now as it never did before. I see now that I could have helped her, it was my fear and selfishness that made me leave her there, she was not beyond help.] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "lastdiary5")

$old[Does she wait for me still, expecting me to return?] ==> (link-goto: "-->", "end")

(font: "bungee hairline")[ (text-style: "smear")[ <center><h1>(text-color: white)[[[START|Opening]]</h1></center>]]]